The Battle of Barbic Woods
by Bright Morning Star
Summary: When the humans came to destroy Barbic Woods that night they expected to make a surprise attack on foes half their size and burn what they didn't smash. To not just defeat them but wipe them out utterly. Anything alive killed, anything else smashed to pieces or burned to the ground. Extinction, once and for all. They should have picked on someone their own size.


I've always been a simple man. Minded my own business, ran my own little shop, lived as quiet-like as I could. But like my grandfather said - sometimes it's the trouble that comes looking for you instead of the other way 'round. The war with those damned Stormcloaks left my shop burned to the ground during the battle for Whiterun. So I joined the Imperial Army for the simplest of reasons: to put a few septims in my pocket, a suit of armor on my back, and a sword in my hand. In these harsh lands you either have those things or you're not long for this world.

I never expected to do anything amazing. Never wanted to. One thing that the old tales don't say is what happens to all the men around the great heroes whose names get carved in stone, 'cause they generally get eaten by the dragon or stabbed by assassins or die in any which way you can think. Maybe I'd help root out a bandit group or hunt down a Sabre Cat what strayed too close to the cities, that's what I thought I'd be doing. Gods, I never even thought I'd saw the Dragonborn again after he left Whiterun. Figured he'd go off and wipe out the Aldmeri Dominion all by himself or marry the Emperor's widow.

What I didn't realize was that the war left the Empire with so many wounded men and dead officers that when they needed a detachment in a hurry it was crazier than a bar fight trying to put one together. I got trained in the heavy armor, fitted out in gear that cost more than my shop and everything in it, and told to not breathe a word to any soul, man, elf or otherwise about anything I saw or did. And then what happens but we march out into some part of Skyrim even more forsaken by the gods and nature than usual, through a cave, and there stands the Dragonborn himself next to some kind of relic I'd never seen or heard the like of...

\- from the journal of an anonymous Imperial Soldier, Fourth Era.

* * *

Ursa aimed her bow skywards, directing her clansbears' aim as they waited for the word -

"VOLLEY!"

In a fearsome unison wooden Babric bows _twanged_ and Imperial crossbows **clunk** - _shanged_. Bolts and arrows whizzed into the treeline, bringing forth another ragged chorus of yells of alarm and higher-pitched screams of agony.

"RELOAD!"  
Ursa cooly drew another shaft from her quiver and fitted it to the bowstring in one fluid motion as the armor-clad soldiers racked another bolt in. She reached back and counted by touch. Only five arrows left. Hardly ideal - but their foe was breaking. Between the Legionnaires and her clan they had blunted their attack. The woods rang with desperate screams and curses instead of sure-hearted battle cries. Bending discipline for a second Ursa gave a fleeting glance over her shoulder -  
"Legate Rikke!"

With a start Ursa's attention was directed to the voice of the 'ambassador' who had been evacuating the innocent from the battle. Her blood turned to water and she gasped in shock at a sight enough to make her fur stand on end. Gone was the great gentle-spoken figure who had come in peace. Gone was the smiling man who had used his great height to pick an apple off a tree branch too high for a cub as a gesture of goodwill. Before her now stood a titan of war clad in...ice? Or at least what _looked like ice_ , impossibly chiseled into shimmering pale-blue-and-purple armor that covered him from head to toe. In one hand he held a shield of an even stranger design - it almost looked like the shell of some giant crab! She barely had time to raise an eyebrow at his incredible garb before he had run up to the commander of the Legion.

"Dragonborn! Thank the Emperor! How goes the evacuation?"  
"The last of the young and old are safe, Legate! One of their number took them to a hidden tunnel!"  
"Then NOW is the time to send these scum packing! Their arrows and their numbers dwindle, they weren't expecting a fair fight!"  
"The fires?"  
"Put out by the small-bears, and they are driven out of throwing range! We'll have no more trouble from those firebrands!"  
"Then it is time!"  
"By Talos, YES! SHIELD-WALL...UP!"

The steel-clad figures braced their feet against the ground torn to muddy swirls by boots and heaved their rectangular shields up. Swords _shinged_ as they were drawn into hands ready to sing a song of doom for their opponents.  
Ursa didn't need to speak their language to understand that a counter attack was soon to come and snapped orders to her clansbears, who calmly switched out their bows for swords and spears.  
As they readied with grim anticipation, the ice-clad figure turned to Ursa with purpose. Her heart skipped a beat as she perceived in his eyes a power far mightier than that of any blade or bow...something that spoke of a power ancient beyond memory...and **deadly** beyond imagination. He drew his own sword, and instead of ringing like metal it hissed like a giant viper. Impossibly, steam boiled off the flared blade in great wisps, and it too appeared to be made of ice forged into a weapon. He spoke with purpose. "Our foes are wounded and half-mad, we'll shatter their lines first. Follow close behind our shield wall! Let none break past into the village!"

Amidst all the clamor of battle Ursa heard, somehow, a voice whisper half in fright and half in awe. "By Talos...that blade...he wields Chilldrend!" She stood every inch as tall as she could with narrowed eyes and a single nod conveying both her understanding and her promise that none would get past them. None would survive this despicable attack on their homes. Not if _she_ had anything to say about it.

The mighty figure gave her the tiniest smile of a fellow warrior. Then he looked out across the battlefield and shouted in a voice of thunder that shook the very ground - "LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR! LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!"

As if on cue the entire Imperial force shouted in reply. **"LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR! LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE!"**  
Ursa noticed that this time there was no defiant countering hail from their foes.  
Legate Rikke called out commandingly, raising her sword high in signal. "SHIELD-WALL...MARCH AT THE DOUBLE!"

As if starting off a race they began clattering across the no-man's land in a perfect line, slower than a flat-out run but fast enough that the Babric fighters had to run themselves just to keep up due to the human's longer legs. But they wouldn't have to run for long - the treeline wasn't far from where they combined forces had stood like a wall of stone since the attack had begun. As they quick-marched a stray arrow _clanged _off the upper part of a Legionnaire's helmet like the clapper on a bell, sending him staggering to a dazed stop behind his shield. His companions closed up the hole in the wall of silver-grey metal that was closing the distance fast.__

"HUT-HUT-HUT-HUT-HUT-"

Closer still. Fifty rods. Forty. The foe's arrows were going wild or glancing uselessly off shields.

"HUT-HUT-HUT-HUT-HUT-"

Thirty rods. Twenty. She noticed Gritti pounding alongside her with a spear in each paw, his face carved into a snarl of pure rage.

"HUT-HUT-HUT-HUT-HUT-"

Ten rods. Ursa kept as close behind the nearest Legionnaire as she dared. She braced for the awful crash of the charge -

 **FUS  
** **RO  
** **DAH  
**  
Words. Words of power that tore the very air apart like moldering cloth. Ahead of all the steel-clad men and women was the one they called "Dragonborn", and his voice of thunder had **spoken.** Tree limbs shattered. Rocks careened about as if thrown by some invisible hand. Foes flew about like leaves in the wind, helplessly crashing into each other or the ground. And with that impossible feat leading the way the charge never even truly stopped; only broke up when the Legionnaires reached the treeline and the fighting began in earnest. Ursa's last coherent memories were of the one in front of her being set upon by two rough figures with maces, blocking the blows of one with his tall shield and parrying with his sword hand. She thrust her spear through his black heart like a bolt of lightning, freeing the Legionnaire to eagerly set upon his comrade whose shrieks of terror were soon silenced. Then all was a mass of noise and fury and grim deeds.

And always in the thickest of the chaos she saw the great figure with ice for armor, ice for a sword and a voice that splintered trees...twice, thrice again his _**voice**_ commanded the world itself to crumble. A titanic oak tree had a six-foot section of trunk above the ground blown to shards and the barbarian behind it hurled backwards to be flattened under the _rest_ of the tree when it hit the ground with a brain-rattling **CRASH**. An opportunistic foe shot an arrow into his back at point-blank range as he fought two more, only for him to spin about on one armored heel and the **voice** to send him hurtling through the air with limbs flailing.

"By my grandmother's tail..." gasped Ursa as she watched the coward flung screaming with all the effort of a clansbear throwing a spear. He didn't even stop to watch the man land, instead turning back to the two barbarians he'd been effortlessly handling before he'd been so rudely interrupted. For a moment he merely glared at them in a way that conveyed as much humor as contempt. The mere idea of trying to win by cowardice was almost funny because even that had no chance and he knew it. Judging from the looks of complete terror on their faces, so did his opponents. And almost before he could even heft that marvelous weapon called Chilldrend, the older of the two threw away sword and buckler and sank to his knees. The younger stayed standing, pointing a short sword that wobbled like a drunken fish. He kept standing even as the first man desperately pleaded to him in another human tongue, until with a lightning stroke the Dragonborn's sword send his own flying across the terrain. At that he curled against a tree, sobbing and hiding behind a wooden shield that was so battered it barely held together. With a sniff of disgust, the ice-clad warrior signaled for a couple Babrics, who were all too happy to make sure they didn't try anything funny.

That was the beginning of the end of the long battle. Others began either surrendering outright or dropping everything and running for their very lives. Two young Legionnaires eager for their first capture tackled an enemy captain and sat on him, the sheer weight of their armor rendering him helpless even as he spat curses fit to embarrass the devil. Babric fighters found another so young he scarcely had a beard, hiding wounded and weaponless in a bush. Besides those few, the rest were soon dead or slain.

Ursa's heart sang as the fighting diminished and shouts of battle gave way to cheers of victory. Soon no matter which way she looked she only saw friendly figures walking about the forest, heard only Imperial soldiers calling to their comrades to rally.

 _We've won._  
 _We drove them back._  
 _We saved our homes_

Those thoughts quickly began pouring over all others in Ursa's mind like a waterfall. Her own body became a subject of her mind, the fiery pain of battle wounds fading away and her exhaustion vanishing like the morning mist. Letting out a completely unnecessary whoop Ursa waved her spear in a circle in the air to signal her clansbears. Calling as loud as her hoarse voice could manage she began leading the victorious Babrics in haphazard fashion. Back out of the woods and the blood. Back toward the home they'd just saved from certain destruction.

* * *

Many thanks to UlisaBarbic for inspiring a story which despite being banged out in an hour on a busy day for creative stress relief (plus that a week ago I'd never heard of the Gummi Bear series) ended up being quite good. I may actually go back and expand this because I'm having a surprisingly good time with the concept.

The thought of an entire race being targeted for genocide by enemies twice their size made me furious, and I've always been a sucker for seeing bullies get their butts kicked. So upon reading about the destruction of Babric Woods in the series I immediately started contemplating a way to make that believably happen.

My problem was who they might meet with that wouldn't completely make things too lopsided. After discarding several crossover ideas, Skyrim came to mind. A world with similar technology, magic, and quite familiar with war. They wouldn't send their entire army to talk to a group of forest-dwellers, but they would send an emissary and a suitable escort. And who better to send than someone an accomplished mage, alchemist, speaker and scholar all in one?


End file.
